Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1887-05-18
DISTRICT SCHOOLS.
An Observer who Backs tsThe Dem.
ocrat,s,, Statements.

ocrat,s,, Statements.
EprToR Democrat: The stand The
DRMocRAT, ably seconded by the Park
City Record, has taken on the educational
system and the condition OF the District
Schools in Utah, is commendatory from
every point of view; and that THE
DEMOCRAT should be attacked by that
journalistic nondescript, the Southern
Utonian, is not at all surprising : in fact,
it is what might be expected. And that
the Utonian should make statement
like the following is likewise not aston
ishing:
"We defy THE DEMOCRAT or any other
issue of the corruptionist5 to successfully
prove that the District schools of Utah are
not, taken as whole, conducted with equal
ability to the schools of any part of the
world. The only thing really needed is a
more united effort on the part of the teach
ere. GENTLE teachers are not more success
full than Mormon teachers. They might be,
for mere show, mors energetic in getting
together in the capacity of conventions, as
sociations, etc.. but as to ability they are
hardly equal"
To one totally unacquainted with the
school houses, furniture and grounds, the
school system and the Mormon teachers
in this city and Territory, the above sort
of rot might be as easily swallowed as a
test oath is by the Strange and peculiar
people," but to anyone who ever saw a
school outside OF Utah, or who has visited
any of the Gentle schools in this Terri
tory, it is malicious falsehood. The
facts of the matter are simply these that.
with avery few exceptions the school
houses in Utah are no nearer what school
houses should. be than the concern from
whence the Utonidn is promulgated is
like first-class printing office; and the
teachers of these schools are about as
well fitted to perform their duties as the
editor of the sheet in question is to edit a
live, loyal, American newspaper. This
is truer of the schools in Salt Lake
than of any other town in the Ter
ritory. Only the other evening
a teacher Of one of the Districts said to
the writer, that when he came from Utah
county to this city to take the school he
is now teaching, he was surprised, in fact,
shocked to behold the shameful excuses
for school houses in this city and the
miserable furniture in them. Neither
Utah schools, nor the teachers thereof,
will compare fayorablS with the schools
and teachers in any of the surrounding
states or territory. Take one territory
Montana-for an illustration. In that
territory, where the writer travelled
for year and a half, the houses
their furniture, and the ladies and gen.
tfemen engaged therein as teachers and
principals are in every respect far ahead
of the excuses for schools and teachers in
Utah. In towns 100 and 200 miles from
any railroad, afar off in the interior Of
Montana, the writer found good brick
buildings, we'll furnished. used for edu-
cational purposes, and they were not in
any way attached to churches of any de-
nomination. In them there were in
telligent, refined, wideawake men
and women who believed in
the progress of humanity, : the
upward and onward advance OF civiliza
ton, in education, in morality and in
freedom. In Idaho, Wyoming and
Nevada, the same conditions werc
visible wherever the writer has Travelled
In Utah such is not the case and never
will be as long as a set of priests holC
power. Having made trip through a..
parts of Utah in the interests OF educa.
ton, and having scores of times been in
the schools between Beaver and Cache
counties, the writer knows from expert
ence and observation that, as
a general thing in Utah, the
school houses are shabby, ili-con
trived affairs, the teachers incompe
tent, and the methods of instruction
wrong and uneducational. The conse
quences are that the children growing uI
here are deprived of the educational
privileges vouchsafed to children else
where in this land of free schools. 1t i:
to be hoped that other loyal papers viii
follow the Record as the Record has fol
lowed THE DEMOCRAT, and give the pub
lie series of sound articles On educa
ton and free schools as we'll as expose
the infamy now known throughout Utah
as the Territorial District Schools.
Mno-ZIP.
SALT LAKE CRY, May Is, 1887.